It is, of course, generally known to automate the opening of doors. The use of an automatic overhead door for a garage, for example, has been known for many years. Generally, a torsion spring is typically used to provide a counterbalance for a garage door, such that opening the garage door vertically is relatively easy, even for an individual to handle manually. One or more tracks are typically provided for moving the door vertically to open and close the same. A motor is utilized whereby the motor pushes and/or pulls the garage door open or closed. It is further known to utilize either a hard-wired control system, such as a simple button, or a wireless control system, for engaging the motor to open and close the garage door.
However, use of an overhead door has significant disadvantages. First, depending on the size of the door to be moved, an adequate torsion spring must be used to provide the counterbalance. If a door is very large, the torsion spring must also be very large. The torsion spring requires maintenance to allow continued use thereof, and eventually the tension in the torsion spring may cause the spring to be damaged after a certain period of time, requiring replacement thereof.
In addition, the track typically utilized in an overhead door typically sits directly beneath the ceiling of the internal space, and frequently reduces the useable vertical height of the internal space. Specifically, the track typically hangs a distance from the ceiling, and the garage door is maintained on the track. The track or tracks, in many cases, hang low, especially if there is very little vertical clearance above the clearance height of the doorway, thereby reducing the useable vertical height of the space. In other words, the lower the track hangs from a ceiling, the shorter the equipment must be that is stored within the space. This may cause a particular problem if a machine, such as a vehicle or a piece of farm equipment, for example, sits fairly high or is very tall; the track of the overhead garage door may be in the way of the machine.
To solve some of these problems, horizontal sliding doors are utilized. Typically, horizontal sliding doors either hang from one or more tracks, or sit upon one or more tracks, or both. In some cases, the horizontal sliding door may be bifurcated, such that the two sliding door panels slide horizontally away from the center of the doorway, thereby exposing the doorway. Alternatively, a single sliding door panel may cover the entirety of the doorway, in which case the single sliding door panel is slid horizontally across the entirety of the door opening to expose the door opening.
Typically, the sliding door is disposed on an outside of the structure, such that opening the sliding door causes the sliding door to be disposed on an outside wall of the structure. To ensure that the sliding door does not get pushed or pulled out of alignment, a track is typically used, either on a top of the sliding door or on the bottom of the sliding door, or both, to hold the door in place. A mullion is typically provided, typically in a center of the door opening, to engage the leading edges of the sliding door to hold the door in place when closed.
Moreover, to hold large sliding doors against door jambs, for example, to keep the sliding doors from being pushed or pulled out of alignment due to wind, for example, a plurality of cinches may be used, typically on both sides of the door opening to hold the sliding doors in place when the doors are closed. The cinches typically include hooks, either on the door or on the wall or jamb adjacent the door, and eyelets that engage the hooks. However, it is difficult to manually implement the plurality of cinches each time the door is required to be open or closed. A user must walk to each cinch and manually manipulate each to “unlock” the door for use thereof. In many cases, more than two or three cinches may be disposed on each side (especially for a relatively large door), requiring a user to walk from one side to the other so that the sliding door may be opened. Of course, once a user is done opening and closing the sliding doors, a user must then manually manipulate each cinch to “lock” the sliding doors against the jambs, thereby holding the door panel or panels in place.
However, to manually open and/or close large sliding doors, a user must attend to unlocking, uncinching and ultimately opening the doors. In many cases, this involves getting out of a vehicle, machine or equipment, walking to the door, unlocking the door, uncinching the door from the jambs, sliding open each door panel, climbing back inside the vehicle, machine or equipment, mobilizing the equipment through the doorway, parking the vehicle, machine or equipment, climbing down from the vehicle, machine or equipment, walking back to the doorway, and sliding closed each door panel. If a user attempts to manually open the door on a particularly windy day, the doors may be damaged due to the wind or other weather and/or a user may have difficulty holding the door in place as it opens and/or closes.
It is further known to automate the opening and closing of horizontally-sliding doors. Typically, a track is disposed on an outside of the structure, typically above the door opening and extending along the outside walls of the structure. The one or more door panels are typically interconnected with the track via at least one carriage attached to a looping chain. The chain is then moved linearly along the track via a motor that pulls the carriage and, ultimately, the one or more door panels either outward or inward, depending on the direction of the motor.
The motor typically sits on an outside of the structure and engages the doors externally to the structure. While this allows the equipment, including the tracks, the carriage, the chain and other like equipment, to stay clear of the door opening, the use of the motor and other equipment outside the structure has significant disadvantages.
Specifically, it may be difficult to keep the motor, track, chain, carriages, and other like equipment free of debris, and clear of weather. For example, dirt, leaves, water and other environmental factors may deleteriously impact the proper functioning of the equipment. Moreover, oftentimes automatic sliding doors are utilized in northern climes, especially when it may be difficult to exit vehicles to manually open a door due to extreme cold. However, the extreme cold may also have a deleterious effect on the proper functioning of the equipment.
A need, therefore, exists to provide systems, apparatus and methods for automating the opening of horizontally-sliding doors. Specifically, there is a need to provide systems, apparatus and methods for protecting equipment and for keeping the equipment free of weather, dirt or debris.
Further, a need exists for systems, apparatus and methods for automating sliding doors that helps to prevent doors from being pushed and/or pulled out of alignment, due to wind or other factors.
In addition, a need exists for systems, apparatus and methods for automating sliding doors that maintains clearance space. Specifically, a need exists for systems, apparatus and methods for automating sliding doors that maintains vertical space in a doorway, or minimizes impingements to vertical space in the doorway, thereby allowing relatively tall equipment to be transportable through the doorway opening. Moreover, a need exists for systems, apparatus and methods for automating sliding doors that maintains horizontal space in a doorway or minimizes impingements to horizontal space within the doorway.
Further, a need exists for systems, apparatus and methods for automating sliding doors that provides sealing of the door against one or more door jambs when the door is closed over the doorway. Still further, a need exists for systems, apparatus and methods for automating sliding doors allowing instant opening and/or closing of the same using one or more wired or wireless control systems.